President Michel Temer met with politicians and
members of his cabinet on February 19 to discuss an executive decree he signed on February 16 allowing the military to assume
control of security operations in Rio de Janeiro.

Following that meeting, Wellington Moreira Franco, a
close advisor to Temer, told the Associated Press that he hoped to see the
model of federal military deployments “spread throughout Brazil.”

Sergio Etchegoyen, the president’s top cabinet member
for military and security matters, said that “Rio de Janeiro is a laboratory.”

During the meeting, the speaker of the lower house of
congress, Rodrigo Maia, described federal military interventions as a “weapon”
in the “war on crime.”

The military has repeatedly been called in to assist civilian police in Rio de Janeiro in
recent years, but Temer’s decree — subject to congressional approval that is
expected this week — represents the first time that the government is using the
constitutional provision allowing the federal armed forces to assume control
over civilian police since the end of the country’s military dictatorship in
1985.

The proposed federal takeover has been met with
some controversy by opposition politicians, who say the move is
legally questionable and politically motivated.

Moreover, the head of Brazil’s army, Eduardo Villas
Bôas, recently cautioned against using the military for domestic
crime-fighting, arguing that such actions increase the risk of politicization
and corruption of the troops.

The intervention in Rio de Janeiro seems to be part of a bigger security play by Temer ahead of the next general elections.

The intervention in Rio de Janeiro seems to be part of
a bigger security play by Temer ahead of general elections scheduled for
October. The day after signing the controversial decree related to Rio, the
president announced the creation of a new Public Security Ministry, which will
assume control over the federal police.

Meanwhile, in the northern Brazilian state of Ceará,
the government has deployed a federal task force in response to rising violence and the recent slaying of two principal members
of the country’s most powerful crime group, the First Capital Command (Primeiro Comando da Capital – PCC.)

The recent comments made by top Brazilian officials
point towards a desire to institutionalize a strategy of militarization that
has shown little long-term promise — both in Brazil and throughout Latin America.

Etchegoyen’s description of Rio as a “laboratory” for
militarized security policies is telling, given that the city has seen multiple past deployments of the armed forces in recent years that have
not achieved any sustainable security gains. The results of militarized
anti-crime strategies implemented by civilian authorities in the city have
proven to be similarly lackluster.

Even while praising the military intervention, Rio de
Janeiro state Governor Luiz Fernando Pezão saidsecurity efforts should aim to address socioeconomic
drivers of crime.

“We’ll only win the war for public security with work
permits,” the governor said.

However, the federal intervention in Rio and the
creation of the new security ministry raise questions about whether sufficient
resources will be dedicated to tackling those issues.

Brazil’s economy has been struggling for years, and
budget cuts have hit social programs as well as the security apparatus at both
the federal and state level. Resource limitations will likely continue
to be a barrier to addressing fundamental issues like poverty, joblessness
and poor training and compensation for civilian police.

This article was previously published by Insight Crime.

About the author

C.H. Gardiner is a Canadian
photographer and journalist based out of Rio de Janeiro. He works principally
with conflict and security issues and the impact they have on society.

This article is published under a Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial 4.0 International licence.
If you have any queries about republishing please contact us.
Please check individual images for licensing details.

Popular Threads

openDemocracy is an independent, non-profit global media outlet, covering world affairs, ideas and culture, which seeks to challenge power and encourage democratic debate across the world. We publish high-quality investigative reporting and analysis; we train and mentor journalists and wider civil society; we publish in Russian, Arabic, Spanish and Portuguese and English.